Six Actions the World is Encouraged to Take in Response to Teen Health 'Wake Up' Call

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This article contains references to suicide.

Today’s teenagers are navigating an increasingly challenging world.

Young people are encountering unique threats to their health and well-being, such as climate change, mental health issues, and digital dangers, while government responses lag behind, according to a significant new global report.

The 2025 Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing, introduced at the World Health Organization Health Assembly, highlighted that the challenges facing young people are intensifying, yet the investment in their future needs to be stronger.

Despite teenagers constituting nearly one-fourth of the world’s population, they benefit from only 2.4 percent of global health and development funding.

Professor Peter Azzopardi, a commission member and the head of the Global Adolescent Health Group at Australia’s Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, stated: “By 2030, we anticipate that half of the world’s adolescents will reside in environments with complex disease burden profiles.”

New study finds high rate of chronic conditions in Australian teenagers image

What challenges are young people facing?

The report outlines a complex set of issues that adolescents are facing globally.

Azzopardi said young people are contending with “new drivers” of poor health, including the accelerating impacts of climate change, wars, and rising obesity rates.

“While climate change impacts us all, it uniquely threatens young people, with climate anxiety and the repercussions of climate displacement creating significant risks,” he remarked.

Today’s adolescents are the first to live their whole lives with the looming threat of climate change, with the report’s estimates suggesting 1.8 billion young people will grow up in a world that is 2.8C hotter by 2100.

Rapid, unplanned urbanisation is also a concern, with the report noting its contribution to social isolation, insecure housing and unequal access to services.

The digital landscape, while providing access to information and connection, has also introduced serious challenges.

“Digital platforms can bring risks to young people, as well as harmful exposures,” Azzopardi said.

The report emphasizes the mental and physical impacts of conflict and displacement, noting that millions of youths grow up in or flee active war zones, with at least four such conflicts occurring worldwide today.

Almost a third of adolescent girls are projected to be out of education, employment, or training by 2030, and the number of healthy years lost to mental illness or suicide is expected to rise to 41 million, two million more than in 2015.

Azzopardi said mental health systems are failing to meet young people’s needs.

“The current approaches that we have, which are predominantly driven through the health system, aren’t effective and aren’t working for them,” he said.

In consultations, young people themselves called for better mental health literacy and an end to stigma.

A call for urgent investment

The commission found that without major intervention, nearly 90 per cent of young people in 2100 will be growing up in countries with limited opportunities and poor health outcomes.

“Adolescence can no longer be ignored,” the report stated.

“The investments made in this generation of adolescents will determine human and planetary futures, for good or ill.

“The time to act is now.”

Young people left behind in 'collapsing' mental health system image

“It’s a real wake-up call that we need to invest in — and we need to invest now,” Azzopardi said.

Despite making up a quarter of the global population and nearly 10 per cent of the total disease burden, adolescents receive just two cents for every health dollar spent globally.

“We’ve failed to really engage with young people meaningfully,” Azzopardi said.

Six key recommendations

The commission has put forward a range of recommendations to shift outcomes for young people. These include:

— Prioritising youth voices in policy making and advocacy

— Establishing clear global goals to measure and track adolescent health and well-being

— Scaling up access to sexual and reproductive health services and protections against gender-based violence

— Strengthening actions within health and education sectors while reinforcing collaborations

— Limiting the exposure of advertising targeting adolescents

— Promoting and encouraging the healthy use of social media and online spaces

Readers seeking crisis support can ring Lifeline on 13 11 14 or text 0477 13 11 14, the Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467 and Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 (for young people aged up to 25). More information and support with mental health is available at beyondblue.org.au and on 1300 22 4636.